SAKHO’S STUNNING SWAROVSKI SUPERFLYS

We’re always on the look out for a great pair of custom football boots here at Footy-Boots.com, but even we were caught by surprise by Mamadou Sakho’s Swarovski-Studded NikeSuperfly II‘s!

Bling

The creation of Pierre at Orrovan Design Studios in Paris, these Mercurial Vapor Superfly II‘s are designed to reflect the identities of France on the left boot and Brazil on the right.

Commissioned by PSG centre-back Mamadou Sakho, the one-off Nike football boots are covered in around 5000 Swarovski crystals, following the pattern on the instep of the Superfly II – if Nike were really looking to enhance the ‘flicker’ technology on the new Superfly III, perhaps they could look to this pair for inspiration!

As far as we can tell, these were once the ‘Windchill’ Superfly II that Cristiano Ronaldo is currently sporting at the Bernabeau – however, those looking to forward to seeing Sakho sporting these bling football boots any time soon will be disappointed – the France international has them strictly for display purposes only.

Didn’t Play

Whilst the imagery on the boot is crystal-clear, the story behind these football boots is somewhat more convoluted

The Orraovan Design blog says that these boots were designed to celebrate his first ever selection into the France National Team for their recent friendly over Brazil.

However, Sakho’s first ever selection for the Les Bleus squad came against England in November 2010, a game in which the Parisian native come on as a second-half substitute; unlike the Brazil match, which saw Sakho on the bench for the whole game.

Even more confusingly, Sakho has been playing in the CTR360 since their launch 18 months ago! But we’d have to guess this was a practical decision on the designers part, as the thinly-uppered Superfly II must be easier to work with than the Kangalite of the CTR.

Cost

Whilst no cost has been disclosed by either Sakho or Orrovan Design Studios, we’ve done a bit of digging to come up with an estimate; sew-on, coloured Swarovski crystals run most jewellers and craft fanatics around 'Ĺ40 for 150, which would mean the cost of the 5000 crystals on Sakho’s football boots is somewhere in the region of 'Ĺ1,300, plus 'Ĺ275 for the Superfly II themselves (Presuming Nike didn’t give him them for free!)

Whilst we’re sure that Orrovan charged Sakho a pretty penny for designing and assembling his football boots, we’re pretty sure that these cleats would still fall short of Rio Ferdinand’s attempt at claiming the title of World’s Most Expensive Football Boots.